


100% sugar

by featherx



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28335723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherx/pseuds/featherx
Summary: “Frankly,” Hubert is saying, “I am appalled at your work ethic.”“Heard that one before,” Caspar agrees.“That isnot something to be proud of.”
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50
Collections: Nagamas Gifts





	100% sugar

**Author's Note:**

> my nagamas gift for [imori-hikaru](https://imori-hikaru.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! i picked the casphardt prompt because cute :) unfortunately i didn't get to write as much as i wanted but i hope you enjoy some meet-cute anyway!!!

“Frankly,” Hubert is saying, “I am appalled at your work ethic.”

“Heard that one before,” Caspar agrees.

“That is _not something to be proud of._ ”

“Come on!” Caspar protests, throwing his hands in the air. “She was nice, so I let her have some candy! What’s the problem with that? If you’re that pressed over it, I’ll just cover it with my own cash!” The candy probably doesn’t even cost a dollar, so he _should_ be fine. Probably. Okay, maybe he should have reviewed the prices a bit more, but it’s _one_ piece of candy. How much can it cost? His student debt?

Hubert massages his forehead like he’s not being paid enough for this. “My problem is not with the _candy,_ Caspar, it is with how you treat customers. I understand if that woman was to your tastes, but at the very least, do not _flirt_ during work hours.”

That gives Caspar pause. He can practically feel the gears in his brain turning rapidly in an effort to understand what the hell Hubert had just said. “Wait. What? Flirt? _What?_ ”

“Oh, please. You may be able to fool Ashe,” Hubert sighs, and Caspar belatedly remembers Ashe had been working the drinks when the candy thing had happened, “but not me. I have working eyes, and even the way you handed her receipt over to her—”

“I gave it to her like I give receipts to everyone else!” Caspar splutters.

Hubert stares at him. “Do not tell me you are being serious right now.”

“Ugh, this is pointless! Okay, fine. Just watch. I’ll serve the next guy who comes over, and _then_ you can see how I freakin’ _hand over receipts,_ ” Caspar suggests, more than a hint of snark in his voice. He throws his employee uniform back on and hurries over to the register, just in time for the coffee shop’s doors to open with a tinkle of the door chimes.

Seriously, why is Hubert even getting on his case about this? Caspar doesn’t _flirt during work hours,_ he’s not _stupid,_ and besides, he doesn’t even like women, sheesh. He’s just a normal uni student trying to scrounge together some money from a part-time job at a nearby coffee shop, not someone like Sylvain from humanities, who definitely just got himself employed at the milk tea place across the street to flirt with the girls who go there after classes. Caspar’s got some _dignity,_ you know. Also, if Edelgard ever caught him doing anything even remotely close to being unprofessional, he’d be chewed out within an inch of his life, and Caspar’s suffered through enough of her infamous lectures by now.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out just before the customer who’d just entered approaches the register. “Good morning!” Caspar greets, although in his head he’s telling himself, _No problem!_ He’ll just have to act like normal and convince Hubert that’s how he always is. As long as he’s not doing anything wrong, he knows he’s in the—

“Morning,” a low voice grumbles. “Vanilla frappe. Thanks.”

—the… he’s in the… the… what was he thinking about again?

Standing before Caspar is who has _got_ to be the prettiest person in existence, so much so that he has to blink several times and rub his eyes to make sure he isn’t hallucinating. But no matter how long he stares, the person doesn’t disappear: long green hair draped across his shoulders like a curtain, sleepy ocean-blue eyes a guy could drown in, pale white skin free of literally every imperfection Caspar can think of… this can’t be legal, right? Who allowed someone this beautiful to exist?

Caspar doesn’t realize he’s been staring in stunned silence for a few seconds longer than appropriate, because the stranger blinks slowly at him and repeats, a little louder, like he’d assumed Caspar just hadn’t heard him earlier, “Morning. Vanilla frappe. Thanks.” Then, after a moment’s pause. “Largest size. 100 percent sugar.”

“Oh! Right!” Caspar laughs, maybe a bit too loudly, and hurries to process the order. “Sorry, sorry. Will that be it? You want anything else with that?”

The stranger mulls it over, then wordlessly shakes their head. Caspar nods. “Can I get your num— _uh,_ name?”

“Linhardt,” the stranger mutters, right before yawning so wide Caspar feels his own jaw twinge in sympathy. “It’s spelled—”

“It’s alright, I got it!” It’s not that hard, right? Spelled like how it sounds? Caspar scribbles the name on the plastic cup before passing it over to Hubert, who, as he’d expected, is watching him like a hawk. But once again, no problem! Even if this Linhardt guy looks like he’d descended straight from Heaven to bless the common people with his stupidly-good looks, Caspar’s acting perfectly normal! “Here’s your receipt. Thanks, Linhardt!”

Linhardt takes the receipt without looking at it and stuffs it in his coat pocket, only giving a silent nod before heading over to a two-person table to sit down. He dumps his book bag on one chair and takes the other for himself, immediately slumping onto the table and pillowing his head atop his folded arms. It doesn’t take long at all for his back to start rising and falling in the unmistakable manner of a sleeping person.

Wow, even how fast he falls asleep is kind of cute. Is Caspar alright? Is this the sort of trait other people find cute? Probably not, right?

“I have nothing to say to you,” Hubert says, pulling Caspar’s attention away from the sleeping stranger. Damn, he’d definitely been staring again, hadn’t he? He’s lucky they’ve just opened up for the day, so no one else is around.

Caspar grins. “I did pretty well, didn’t I?”

“No,” Hubert says, voice perfectly flat. “I’ve simply decided to give up.”

Caspar delivers Linhardt’s vanilla frappe to him, but the guy’s still asleep, so Caspar very carefully places the tray atop the table, making _absolutely_ sure he doesn’t touch Linhardt’s hair or arms. Then he rushes back to the counter, grabs a cleaning rag, and very carefully wipes the table clean of some stray drops of water and dust. Nothing’s wrong with doing this, right? It’s just common courtesy! He’s just doing his job. If anything, Hubert should be proud of him or something.

He turns around just to see Hubert staring at him, with the sort of expression he makes when he’s extremely tired and not willing to do anything ever again. Okay. That’s fair.

The day is slow, thankfully, and Ashe comes around to join him at drinks again, to Caspar’s delight. His morning shift ends at noon, just in time for his first class of the day, and he finishes up one last order at the register before tugging his uniform off. “I’ll get going, Ashe!” he calls. “Is Ferdinand here for the next shift yet?”

“Yeah, he should be in the backroom,” Ashe responds. His smile falters and gives way to confusion when his gaze flickers over to something behind Caspar, though. “Oh. Uh, Caspar, I think someone’s asking for you.”

“Me?” It can’t be that his groupmates for his final project went all the way here to strangle him for not doing his part in the paper properly! He’d researched late into the night for that. Caspar turns around, ready to square up and explain himself, only to come face to face with, of course, the last person he’d expected to be face to face with again. “Ack! Er, you’re, aren’t you… Linhardt!”

Linhardt stares down at him, then nods. He looks as sleepy as earlier, like the frappe had done absolutely nothing for him aside from inject sugar directly into his system. “It’s you, right? You spelled it wrong.”

The words take a moment to process in Caspar’s head. “Your name? But—”

“Here.” He pushes something into Caspar’s hands, and Caspar’s so bewildered that he accepts it without thinking. Linhardt looks at him for another second longer, then—no way!—gives Caspar a small, amused smile. “For next time.”

Then he turns and leaves without another word, his bookbag slung over one shoulder, his laptop tucked under one arm. The chimes tinkle gently as the doors close behind him.

Ashe is upon him in an instant. “What was that? He’s the nice stranger from a while ago you were talking about, right?”

Caspar tries to say something smart and intelligent, like, “Yeah, he is,” but all that comes out of his mouth is garbled nonsense that he himself doesn’t understand, much less Ashe. He hurriedly clears his throat and manages, “Yes! Yeah. Yeah, Linhardt… I spelled his name wrong?” This is awful. He’d wanted to sort-of-maybe-impress the guy by spelling his name right on the first try, but he’d gone and screwed up instead. Ugh.

But… he’d gotten that smile! So… maybe he’d at least made Linhardt laugh a little? Hopefully. He didn’t seem like the sort of person who’d get offended because someone misspelled his name. Then again, Caspar’s known him for all of five minutes, so maybe this doesn’t mean much.

Anyway. “What’d he give me?” Caspar mutters, looking down at his hands. It’s the receipt he’d given Linhardt earlier, he realizes—well, according to the name printed on the paper, _Linheart,_ Caspar supposes, more than a bit embarrassed. Could that be considered flirting? No way, right? It had been an honest mistake. A totally honest one. Definitely not flirting. But why give the receipt back? Caspar had seen him draining the frappe earlier, so at least he knows Linhardt isn’t dissatisfied with the drink, at least…

“Ah! There’s something at the back,” Ashe points out.

Caspar hurriedly flips the crumpled paper over, only to be greeted with some unintelligible scribbles. “Uh… did he doodle on it or something?” he guesses. “Or—wait, he’s got to be a student, right? Did he use this to solve a math problem or something…?” The scribbles don’t really look like numbers, admittedly, but then they don’t really look like anything at all.

Ashe stares at him like he can’t believe what he’s hearing right now. “Caspar, that’s his _name._ ”

“…What?”

“Look! That’s an ‘L’ and an ‘i’ and an ‘n’—it’s Linhardt! Like… Lin… hardt…” Ashe squints at the paper. “But, wow. His handwriting really sucks. It might have been easier if you just stuck with Linheart rather than try to decipher this by yourself…”

“Linhardt!” Caspar stares at the receipt with newfound appreciation. “Holy shit. It’s not Linheart after all. Wait! Did you hear what he said? He said ‘for next time’ or something like that, and then he totally smiled at me, right? Is that a sign? Is he sending a signal? What should I—” He’d meant to ask ‘what should I wear,’ but realizes he’d be stuck in the uniform anyway, so he scraps that and asks, “What should I _do?_ Just keep taking his order for more sugary vanilla frappes?”

Ashe raises his hands up. “Don’t ask _me._ Honestly, if he’d really wanted you to get his name right, I’m pretty sure he would have made more of an effort to make his handwriting legible in the first place…”

But Caspar can’t hear him over the buzz of excitement in his veins anymore. Next time… Linhardt had promised next time. Will that be the same time tomorrow? Next week? Dang it, would it have hurt the guy to specify a date and time—

“Wait, shit!” Caspar jumps. “My class! Prof’s gonna murder me in—” He checks the time. “Three minutes ago! Oh God. Okay, I’m off, bye!”

He races out of the coffee shop and down the streets—half of Caspar is tempted to look for Linhardt and get a Date and Time out of him, but the other half is just a tinier bit smarter and pushes him to keep heading towards the building for his class. Still, he can’t quite keep the smile off his face, and he ends up gripping onto the receipt so hard he very nearly rips it in his fist before he thinks better of it and slips it into one of his notebooks instead.

It’s fine. There’s next time, and maybe he can work up the nerve to write ‘Lin❤’ or something equally stupid, just to see if Linhardt will smile at him like that again.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/featherxs)


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